Raw Sewage

Residents in the Severna Park neighborhood of Ben Oaks gave their stamp of approval last night to an alternative plan presented by the county that would not require more than a million gallons of raw sewage to pass through a tiny pumping station a stone's throw from the Severn River. "Thank you for taking us seriously, because there was a lot of concern generated about the Severn River," Ben Oaks Civic Association President Catherine Thomas told county public works engineers who presented the plan last night at the county's Central Water Facility in Millersville.

A multibillion-dollar overhaul is needed of failing municipal sewer systems in Maryland that annually dump millions of gallons of untreated sewage into rivers and streams that feed the Chesapeake Bay, a state task force has concluded. But the panel, appointed by Gov. Parris N. Glendening after a series of major sewage spills last year in Baltimore and Western Maryland, has yet to calculate the full cost of the work. The group will hold its first and only scheduled public meeting tonight before making final recommendations late next month.

Someone pried a 100-pound manhole cover off a sewer line in South Carroll, broke it into pieces, then jammed it and other debris into the line, causing about 2 million gallons of raw sewage to overflow into a nearby tributary of Piney Run. Carroll County health officials spent much of yesterday afternoon posting 200 signs two miles along the stream to the Patapsco River, advising swimmers and anglers to stay out of the water. "To have the loss or the degradation of these very rare, pristine and naturally clean streams is just a terrible thing," said Richard McIntire, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Someone pried a 100-pound manhole cover off a sewer line in South Carroll, broke it into pieces, then jammed it and other debris into the line, causing about 2 million gallons of raw sewage to overflow into a nearby tributary of Piney Run. Carroll County health officials spent much of yesterday afternoon posting 200 signs two miles along the stream to the Patapsco River, advising swimmers and anglers to stay out of the water. "To have the loss or the degradation of these very rare, pristine and naturally clean streams is just a terrible thing," said Richard McIntire, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Someone pried a 100-pound manhole cover off a sewer line in South Carroll, broke it into pieces, then jammed it and other debris into the line, causing about 2 million gallons of raw sewage to overflow into a nearby tributary of Piney Run. Carroll County health officials spent much of yesterday afternoon posting 200 signs two miles along the stream to the Patapsco River, advising swimmers and anglers to stay out of the water. "To have the loss or the degradation of these very rare, pristine and naturally clean streams is just a terrible thing," said Richard McIntire, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.

SEEPING, persistent pollution of city waterways and park streams. Burst waterlines and sinkholes in downtown streets, raw sewage spills that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. These are the kinds of problems that plague the century-old, deteriorated water and sewer systems that underlie Baltimore. Will hundreds of millions of dollars in planned repairs and replacements be enough to repair this crumbling infrastructure? That's doubtful. Even though the city plans $135 million in sewer improvements over the next six years and has spent some $100 million on it in the past decade, it will require an even steeper financial commitment to right the sewage wrongs that rage beneath city streets.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening added his voice yesterday to the chorus of support for a measure aimed at helping local governments pay to upgrade old and outdated sewer systems. The problem of spills and overflows from aging sewer systems is "one of the most important environmental issues facing the states of the Chesapeake Bay region," the governor wrote to Del. Ron Guns, chairman of the House Environmental Matters Committee. Urging the committee to vote for the bill, Glendening said he would meet with the state's congressional delegation to try to get federal money to help pay for the work.

Baltimore will spend $475,000 to study its aging sewer system, which has caused more than 16 million gallons of raw sewage to be dumped into waterways over the past five months. With legal pressure building from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment, the city Board of Estimates unanimously agreed yesterday to an emergency spending request to hire engineers to examine ways to upgrade and maintain the system. The board approved a contract with Metcalf and Eddy Services of Baltimore to inspect and determine priorities for repairs to the 3,100-mile system.

Amid contention over a spate of recent sewage spills into public waterways around the state, Prince George's County health officials posted warning signs yesterday in a neighborhood where raw sewage flowed through an open culvert about 60 feet from people's houses and into a branch of the Anacostia River. The spill, which began in the median strip of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near Route 450, was initially thought to have involved 12,600 gallons of raw sewage that leaked from a 49-year-old pipe Monday and Tuesday.

CUMBERLAND - As the late-afternoon sun sinks toward the mountains, 16-year-old Brent Sorrells pauses on his trek home through downtown to show off his catch for the day. It is a jar full of minnows, to be used as bait for hooking bigger fry. Just a stone's throw from where the lanky youth netted his fish, milky green water with a septic smell oozes from a concrete tunnel into the North Branch of the Potomac River. Whenever a hard rain falls - and this year has brought dozens of downpours - the tunnel spews a torrent of water contaminated with raw sewage into the river.